“Thank you,” said Vickers, “but I shall have to be here until to-morrow.” “Oh, I see. Nellie will need you. But you might ask her. Nellie,” she added, “we want Bob to come with us after the funeral. He seems to think you can’t spare him.” Nellie, who had just entered the room, looked for an instant somewhat confused by this sudden address, but almost at once she replied coldly that she had spared Bob for so many years that she could probably do it again. Without very much encouragement the two new cousins continued to cling to Vickers throughout the remainder of the ceremonies. They looked upon him as a direct reward of virtue. They had risen at an impossibly early hour, given up engagements merely from a sense of obligation to an old gentleman they hardly knew. The discovery of a good-looking cousin was a return--no more than just, but utterly unexpected. For his part, if he had not been very conscious that this was his last day with Nellie, he would have enjoyed the company of the others. He took them down to the station and put them on their train, though he continued to refuse to accompany them. “But you’ll come some day, soon, won’t you, Bob?” Bertha exclaimed. “I hear you are very wicked, but it doesn’t matter.” “Yes,” said Vickers, “I myself understand that I am an excellent subject for reform.” “We won’t try and reform you,” they answered; “we like you as you are,” and they kissed him again, and departed. On his return to the house he heard that Nellie had gone to lie down, leaving word that Mr. Overton was coming after lunch. Overton had been Mr. Lee’s man of business. He and Emmons arrived soon after two. They sat round the library stiffly. Only Overton seemed to be as usual, his calm Yankee face untouched by the constraint visible in the others. “I don’t know whether you want me actually to read the will itself,” he said. “It is a very simple one. He leaves all the Hilltop property to his son, without restrictions of any kind. That is all he had to leave. The town house is nominally Nellie’s, but it is mortgaged to its full value.” “Do you mean to say,” Emmons cried, “that Nellie gets nothing?” “Nothing, I’m sorry to say--perhaps a hundred or so, but I doubt even that.” “You mean that Mr. Lee did not even leave her the equivalent of the sum which his son took from her?” “That is exactly what I mean, Mr. Emmons.” “It is an iniquitous will. The man who made that will was mad, and no lawyer should have drawn it for him.” “I drew it,” said Overton gently. “You should not have done so, sir,” replied Emmons; “knowing the facts as you do, you ought to have pointed out to the old man where his obligations lay.” “It is the profession of a clergyman, not of a lawyer, to point out his client’s duty, Mr. Emmons.” Emmons looked from one to the other, and then, remembering the sudden friendship that had sprung up between them, he asked, “And when was this will made?”